I found out why I could not focus properly on the moon last night. My Canon EOS-30D’s viewfinder was not adjusted properly.

It was obvious when I looked through the viewfinder at a passing helicopter the next day. I must have moved the adjustment wheel inadvertently. I’d forgotten it was there.

Here’s the page from the Canon EOS-30D User Guide:

Canon EOS-30D Dioptric Adjustment

Another thing I liked about my old Canon A-1 was that it had a little shutter to close the viewfinder window. It was good for tripod work. Canon have done away with it on their consumer cameras. I think the EOS-1D has one.

Last night I made a second set of test shots of the Thai moon over Bangkok. This time I tried manually focusing on the moon with my Canon 75-300mm lens set at 300mm.

Although the pictures looked all right in the viewfinder and on the LCD display, when I got them into Lightroom they were unacceptably blurred.

Moon Out of Focus

My first attempts when I let the camera auto-focus were much better. I was surprised that it could focus, but it did and it did a better job than my 53-year-old eyeballs.

I remember my Canon A-1 film SLR camera had two optical devices in the viewfinder to help you focus. (This was the 1980s before auto-focus was available).

The first were micro-prizms. They disappeared when the picture was correctly focused. The second was a split prism. This worked better in low light. You adjusted focus until the top and bottom half of the picture was aligned. This article talks about them and this article explains the optical theory.

I don’t think there’s a technical reason cameras no longer have these aids. They are available on professional cameras like the Canon EOS-1 series. I suppose manufacturers believe that autofocus works 99% of the time so they are no longer necessary for amateurs.

Just before the end of the year while working at the Studio, my Canon EOS-10D gave its final shutter click and passed on, though with a bit of repair of which I hope to do in the new year. Currently my camera collection is made up of:  A Canon 350D,  Canon 10D,  Canon 20D and now a new addition of a Canon EOS-30D.  I have to admit that my first impressions were quite good and I was first intrigued with the larger LCD screen at the back of the camera which views images at 1024×768 a completely different world to the previous cameras. There is also a larger ISO expansion with the 30D which will come handy for those “low light” situations.

Canon EOS-30D

Further to all this, I am now able to use my Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (58mm) lens, so I went out and about to the Darabin Parklands with the use of my Infra-Red Filter and created some interesting photos,  a few examples can be seen below …a small amount of post-production was done to get rid of some marks on the images other then that I was happy with the result;

Canon EOS-30D with 18-55mm, 33mm @ F/29, 300secs

With little to be done over the next few weeks I am looking forward to getting out with the camera and learning more about its features and creating some interesting results. Until the next photographic adventure

Thats all for now: Brett Robson – Freelance Media Photographer

I asked my online mentor, Michael Willems, a question that’s been bothering me for a while:

We’re having some lovely clear nights in Bangkok now it is the cool season. The moon often looks great but I have had limited success photographing it. Do you have any tips for good lunar photography?

He responded here with some useful tips.

The moon wasn’t very interesting tonight and it wasn’t full but I thought I’d try his suggestions.

I set up the Canon EOS-30D on a tripod with a cable release. My longest lens is the Canon 75-300mm F3.5-5.6 so I used that at 300mm.

I set the camera to 100 ASA to get the best quality from the sensor. I set a manual exposure of 1/125 at F11.

The moon was high in the sky so I got a crink in my neck trying to focus manually. It was not very bright so I tried some longer exposures.

I converted them to greyscale in Lightroom – the images looked better that way.

Here’s a single sheet with four pictures, courtesy of Lightroom’s “Print to File” feature:

Moon Shots

I also put some larger pictures on Flickr:

1.

2.

3.

4.

My reaction? They are okay and better than I have achieved in the past. They don’t have the sharpness I was hoping for. I think that’s a function of my inexpensive consumer-grade lens. The camera is capable of better pictures.

We are getting some beautiful sunsets in the cool season.

I fiddled with the camera settings a lot to persuade it to display what I saw. I don’t have time as the sun sets fast in the tropics and the shades of the sky change quickly. I found 2/3 of a stop under-exposure worked well with a minimum of post-processing in Lightroom.

I put the camera on my monopod to take this shot. I used the Canon EOS-30D’s highest ISO – 1600 and it selected 1/30 second at F3.5. I did not see any point at stopping the lens down to get a better depth-of-field (DOF) as there is not much detail available in this light.

I’d love to see what the Canon EOS-7D would make of this scene with its maximum ISO of 12800. That is three stops extra sensitivity so an equivalent exposure would be 1/125 second.

As planned, I went to see the Thailand Motor Expo 2009 show on Thursday afternoon. They have a free shuttle bus from Chatuchak Park Subway Station / Mo Chit Skytrain Station. The problem is the small Golden Dragon buses are very cramped and the driver waits until it is full with 19 passengers before departing. This took twenty minutes and the overall journey was the best part of one hour through heavy Northern Bangkok traffic.

IMPACT Link Shuttle Bus

Then I found that a member of the Thai Royal Family was visiting the show at the same time. Thus the exhibition was surrounded by hundreds of army and police officers. The Thai forces are extremely efficient when members of the Royal Family are involved.

They were not letting any guests into the building so I had to hand around outside. After about 45 minutes a convoy drew up to the main entrance. The police kept us well away from that area. But I was able to photograph the vehicles. After the Royal Person (I don’t know who it was) went into the hall the cars came near me to turn around for a speedy departure.

That group consisted of a cream Mercedes-Benz S-Class, four red BMW 5-Series and two escorting police cars: a slightly older BMW 5-Series and a Toyota Camry.

Royal Mercedes-Benz S-Class

A military band played as the Royal Person entered the hall.

It was all very impressive.

When I finally got into the exhibition hall I was running a bit late. I had to pay 80 Baht entrance fee. If I had bought a ticket at the Subway Station I could have got one for 40 Baht but they were out when I asked. Still, 80 Baht is very cheap and it included the return bus to the Subway.

The exhibition was in three halls of the enormous IMPACT Muang Thong Thani Exhibition Centre. It’s the biggest in Thailand and maybe in the region. It’s also a well-known venue for concerts.

I only had time to visit one hall, but it was the one with the major manufacturers’ stands.

I was not disappointed: almost every stand had a team of pretty girls promoting the vehicles.

BMW Pretty

There were plenty of photographers around, many with some expensive kit. I took my Canon EOS-30D with the Canon 580EX flash and my widest angle lens. It is, I confess the old “kit lens” from the EOS-300D – the Canon EF-S 18-55mm.

Photographing the Pretties

I know serious photographers deride this lens, but for my purposes of taking “record” shots for display on the web it was fine and I appreciated the 18mm wide-angle. Of course it was the wrong lens to have when I was photographing the Royal vehicles outside. But I had enough high quality pixels shooting in RAW that I obtained adequate pictures after cropping in Lightroom.

I think the ideal lens for this job would have been my friend’s fast Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM with its high speed and thus shallower depth-of-field. Maybe he’ll allow me to borrow it some day.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM - the ideal lens for the job?

I saw a small but high-quality exhibit of older vehicles including this Jaguar E-Type.

Jaguar E-Type

The Tata Nano was on the Tata stand. I don’t know if they plan to sell it in Thailand. I think it is too small for the market. Outside Bangkok people haevily favour light trucks like the Isuzu DMax and the Toyota Hilux Vigo – both made in Thailand.

Tata Nano

The show runs through 13th December. If I have time I’ll go again and take more time to look around. There were some exhibits on the outside of the halls like a 4×4 obstacle course. It was not in use when I went to look. Perhaps it is an evening attraction.

Overall I was impressed with the Motor Expo. It was easily as professional and interesting as those I have been to in England and America.

Here are slide shows from the 2008 and 2009 shows.

On Sunday I went to the Siam Square area of Bangkok. A friend had posted photos of a motorcycle show and I wanted to get my own pictures.

Unfortunately Saturday must have been the last day. There were no bikers – just cars in the car park outside the Hard Rock Cafe. I wandered randomly down the road and came to MBK Center. There was a Thai Gamer Festival taking place.

No Thai event is worth the name without “pretties” promoting the latest and greatest. And part of their duties include posing prettily for photographers. They are always charming and photogenic.

I posted a few pictures to Flickr here. I thought the young woman above was particularly good. I am not a gamer so I have no idea what she was promoting.

I took my Canon EOS-30D with me with my “Nifty Fifty” 50mm lens. It works well as a general purpose lens despite being “compact macro”. As always after using the sluggish Nikon Coolpix P6000 it was so good to go out with a camera that takes a photograph the moment you press the shutter release – not (seemingly) several seconds later.

Of course I paid a price in weight around my neck – but the 50mm lens is quite light. And I paid a price later as I had to geotag all the pictures manually. But it was worth it for the speed and flexibility of the DSLR design and implementation.

So when I feel low it is good for me to go out with a camera. There is always something interesting happening in Bangkok, even if it isn’t what I expected. And a smile from a beautiful woman is always cheering to the soul.

Thai Gamer Festival

The festival is over now, but I bet there’s something equally interesting in its place or close by.

Ice Coffee

Last week a friend asked me to photograph some wheatgrass healthy drinks for his company. I gave him a CD containing all the pictures.

Yesterday evening he called me to say that one of the pictures was missing. How could this be? I put copies of every picture I took on the CD. Then I realised … his assistant gave me a cup of ice coffee and I did not know it was another photographic subject. So I drank it!

No harm done – I went back this morning and took a picture of another cup. Then I drank it.

I had a busy day doing another product shoot for a friend in Huay Khwang. He had a range of wheatgrass products and drinks to be staged and photographed.

As before I used the Canon EOS-30D outside on a tripod with a single flash to provide some fill light. We used a simple white web board as a backdrop.

I used my Canon EF 50mm F2.5 Compact Macro Lens set to F8. It’s a nice sharp little lens and I was pleased with the results.

Most of the work was in Photoshop where I had to separate the product from the background and put it in a separate layer. That makes it easy for a designer to incorporate it into an advertisement, brochure or a banner.

I wish I was more adept with the Lightroom pen tool so I could make proper paths. But results using selections were fine on simple shapes.

I saved the pictures for delivery as a layered TIF file with a 50% grey background. I saved a Levels Adjustment Layer for the product so a graphics artist or designer can adjust the picture easily. I also delivered JPEG files for use on the web.

The only embarrassment came when I printed the label for the CD. One of the ink cartridges on my Canon MP610 printer silent ran out of ink so the customer’s logo is discoloured. It’s not vital but I prefer everything to be perfect.

Canon EOS 30D – Sigma 24-70 f/2.8

1/2500 sec. @ f/10 ISO 800

I’m always looking out of my apartment window at the grand view I have of Bangkok. The window faces west and I have a fine view all the way from Rachadapisek Road all the around to the tall office buildings in the Chatuchak District.

Today I noted someone had erected a new billboard on a building about three miles away to the north. I thought I’d see if I could read it from a photograph.

I have two Canon DSLR bodies: a 2004 vintage EOS-300D (the original silver Digital Rebel) and a 2006 EOS-30D.

My longest lens is the Canon EF 75-300mm F4-5.6 zoom (non-IS). It is good for a US$200 lens but of course not up to “L” standards.

I decided to do a test using the same lens on both bodies with the same shooting conditions. Fortunately today was clear in the morning so I had a good view.

I set the cameras up on a tripod with a cable release with these settings:

• Aperture priority – F8. (I read this is the len’s optimum aperture)
• ISO 100.
• RAW
  • 3072 x 2048 for the EOS-300D’s 6.3MP sensor.
  • 3504 x 2336 for the EOS-30D’s 8.2MP sensor.
• Pattern metering mode.
• Zero exposure compensation.

I took photos at 75mm, 100mm, 135mm, 200mm and 300mm with the same lens on both cameras.

I imported all the pictures into Lightroom 2.4, converting them to DNG and the Pro Photo RGB colour space in the process. I used the Lightroom “Camera Landscape” camera calibration profile (which matches Canon’s Landscape Picture Style). I set the white balance to Daylight (5500K).

Here are the views taken at 75mm:

EOS-300D

EOS-30D

You can examine larger pictures on Flickr by clicking on each picture.

I was interested in the pink billboard at the centre of the pictures.

I used Lightroom to make two crops of the 300 mm pictures’ DNG files to show only the billboard. Here they are:

EOS-300D

EOS-30D

Yes! I could read them.

They are advertising new “Paradise” condominiums on Chaeng Watthana Soi 14. They have an offer of free furniture.

But I was surprised that the picture from the old EOS-300D seemed clearer. I think I applied the same processing parameters in Lightroom. I would have thought that the newer EOS-30D would have delivered a better result.

Maybe the EOS-30D’s sensor is dirty. I don’t have the courage to try to clean it myself.

I have not yet found anywhere in Thailand where I can rent Canon camera equipment. It would be great to rent a L telephoto lens for a few days to compare the results in real use.

Is there anything wrong with my methodology?

Cyber World Towers is a long running development in the Rachadapisek area of Northern Bangkok. The towers are built on top of a former Tokyu department store.

In January 2008 both towers were heavily damaged by fire in a mysterious blaze in the early hours. They were incomplete at the time and I don’t think anybody was hburt. Some people believe the buildings are jinxed.

Now they look externally complete and there are lights on inside. I’ll have to go and check. There is a web site for the project here.

“Cyber” now sounds a bit dated as a prefix for a building or project name. It used to be all the rage, especially in Asia.

This photo was taken from the 9th floor of my apartment building across the road about 400m distant. I used an image stabilized lens on the Canon EOS-30D. 1/2 second at 800ASA worked reasonably well.

I’d love to see how a new camera like the Canon EOS-&D would do with this shot. I think it has far better High-ISO performance.

Here’s a picture of the towers in July 2008. Repairs are taking place.

I posted another picture of the Towers here in another context.

There’s a news story on the fire here.

I tried performing the assignment Michael Willems set on his photography blog here.

His instructions were to shoot twelve photos in your living room using a 50mm F1.8 lens in available light. Then to present them as a 3 x 4 arrangement.

I uploaded my result to Flickr:

I don’t have a 50mm F1.8 lens so I used my Canon 50mm F2.5 “Compact Macro” instead. I tried to keep the shutter speed above 1/50 second by varying the ISO speed between 400 and 800. I wanted a shallow depth of field so I shot at F2.5 or F2.8.

It was great fun. As Michael said – once you get started there are so many possibilities to “fill the frame”.

At last I have a good reason to buy a new camera. The rubber cover on the side of my Canon EOS-30D has broken. It protects the two sockets for flash sync and cable release / remote control.

Actually, I should take the camera to Canon Thailand for a cleaning and adjustment. Their charges are reasonable. They’ll probably replace the cover for free.

It’s a lovely Sunday morning in Bangkok. The sky is clear and it isn’t too hot or humid. I took some photos out of the window using the Nikon Coolpix P6000’s “Landscape” mode. That reminded me on a minor annoyance in Lightroom 2. I wanted to see if Adobe have fixed it in the Lightroom 3 Beta.

No, they haven’t, but it probably isn’t their fault.

With my Canon EOS-30D, if I take a photo in one of the camera’s preset modes: “Action/Sports”, “Closeup”, “Landscape” or “Portrait” this setting shows up in the “Exposure Program” field of the EXIF information as displayed in Lightroom.

But Lightroom 2 and 3 Beta both show Exposure Program Normal for the Nikon Coolpix P6000.

I assume this is because Nikon store this information in a non-standard format and Adobe don’t extract it from the file.

I checked my old Canon EOS-300D in Landscape mode. Lightroom 2 does not display an EXIF Exposure Program setting at all.

That may mean that the storage of this information in the EXIF is not standard and Adobe made a special case for the EOS-30D.

I tried searching my pictures for those taken in Landscape mode using Lightroom’s filters. It isn’t a standard filter and it does not work if I set up a text filter on “Searchable Metadata” or “Searchable EXIF” for the string “Landscape”. that’s a bit inconvenient. I’d like to be able to do that.

I tried it in both version 2 and version 3 with the same result. The fact that Adobe use the term “searchable” implies that some EXIF (and IPTC) fields are not searchable.

The problem is obviously not simple. My current guess is that “Exposure Program” is an enumerated type rather than a string and each manufacturer encodes it differently.

I know “serious photographers” don’t use these scene modes at all. On Canon cameras, for example, you cannot shoot in Raw if you use a programmed mode. I am a pragmatist. I’ll use whatever it takes to get the picture I want. I do draw the line at what I think are silly modes like “Food“.

Note the Canon shirt

Unfortunately only Thai citizens are allowed to enter the annual Canon Photomarathon. It’s very popular and it looks like a load of sanuk (fun). It was a very friendly gathering of several hundred photographers who were dispatched to take photos according to assignments from the organizers.

It didn’t seem very competitive – most were very laid back. I bet you can tell something about typical national characteristics from the behaviour at events like this. A New York event would be much more intense.

I went along to Central World to have a look-see and take my own photos. No one minded at all. I saw a lot of very expensive Canon equipment in use. Long L lenses on EOS-1D bodies for example. But there were a few people using compact cameras. My best sighting was a contestant with an old silver bodied EOS-300D – the original Digital Rebel, just like mine. But he had a L series 70-200mm zoom attached to it.

Maybe he agrees with my thought that it is better to invest in new lenses than new camera bodies if you want to take better pictures.

I took my Canon EOS-30D with the cheap kit 18-55mm EF-S lens. I did not feel envious of the expensive kit around me, I am the Bangkok Frugal Photographer!

All contestants received a natty black Canon shirt. It was great publicity for Canon as the photographers spread out all over the city. I had my photo taken a couple of times. If you won a prize – I want a share!

I posted a load of photographs to PicasaWeb here.

If you would like a copy of any photo feel free to leave a comment here. Most are in DNG format.

Definition of frugal from Dictionary.com:

1. Economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful: a frugal manager.
2. Entailing little expense; requiring few resources; meager; scanty: a frugal meal.

Synonyms:

thrifty, chary, provident, careful, economical.

Maybe I should rename this blog “The Frugal Photographer”. Unfortunately the domains frugalphotographer.com and thefrugalphotographer.com have been taken already.

Everybody I know is getting the latest cameras and accessories like the Canon EOS-7D. I am on a budget and I’m going to control myself. It is great to read about the latest equipment. I am sure I would love to be able to purchase anything and everything that takes my fancy. But I want to be responsible and frugal.

(Of course with the 7D I can easily say that – it isn’t available in Thailand yet.)

I am reading all the first impressions (for example Michael Willems’s ongoing summaries) and reviews and every time I see something even mildly critical I saw “Oh well then, it isn’t worth it!”.

I console myself with the fact that a good photographer can take exceptional pictures with common equipment. My 2004 Canon EOS-300D Digital Rebel still takes great pictures if I am careful and patient (it’s slow!).

My 2006 Canon EOS-30D is much, much faster and takes fine photos. OK it does not have video or Live View and it doesn’t scrub its sensor every morning and evening but I still love it.

I have a modest selection of Canon lenses but nothing from the L series. My Canon MP610 printer / scanner is nearing its second birthday.

My laptop is a modest Compaq Presario CQ40 with no additional screens or other fripperies. I do have tons of disk space and up-to-date versions of the key software I use daily.

I take some pride in the fact that I have zero recurring software expenses. I have free accounts with Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Flickr, PicasaWeb, EveryTrail, Mozy Home and so on. And of course this blog is free courtesy of WordPress.

I’ve written extensively about my Nikon Coolpix P6000. That’s my only photographic extravagance this year. It’s getting a bit worn now but I have finally worked out how to work around its sloth and I enjoy it a lot. 80% of the time I do not take either DSLR out with me. The P6000 does fine.

Of course the P7000 will be out soon and I’ll have camera-envy all over again. But there have been no new rumours since August, so I’ll have bragging rights about one of my cameras for a little while.

frugal. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/frugal (accessed: October 15, 2009).

Canon EOS 7D Hands-on Preview: Digital Photography Review.

This may be my next camera to replace my Canon EOS-30D. I’d like to read the full review by Dpreview.com but everything they say in this preview looks impressive.

I like the brighter viewfinder and the customization options. At last we have a camera that can shoot RAW continuously and at 8fps.

Unlike with a full frame sensor camera like the EOS-5D, I think my existing lenses will be adequate with it. It supports EF-S, but I only have one EF-S lens.

Like all Canon cameras, it supports the sRGB and Adobe RGB colour spaces. I wonder when (if) cameras will move to support ProPhoto RGB. I don’t think it matters if you shoot in RAW, but for people who shoot JPEG don’t I lose something even if I use Adobe RGB? I understood from Lightroom that it is best to use ProPhoto RGB all the way through your workflow.

It does not have integrated GPS. You have to connect a GPS unit via the extra cost WFT-E5 Wireless File Transmitter. I wonder when Canon will take GPS seriously.

The US list price for the body only is $1,699 + tax of course.

That is about 57,436 Baht according to the currency converter at OANDA.com. However, electronics always cost more in Thailand. I don’t think I would see much change out of 65,000B or 70,000B here.

I went to the Canon Thailand web site (English version) to see if it is available here yet. Amazingly I got an error

503 Service Unavailable

No server is available to handle this request.

I don’t know exactly what this means. So I don’t know.

A flight of three Royal Thai Air Force Bell 412 Twin Huey helicopters flew past the apartment this morning. I keep my Canon EOS-30D camera ready with the 75-300mm lens to take such shots.

I took this one on shutter priority at 1/250 second and 200ASA. I didn’t use Action Mode as that uses a much faster shutter speed / 400ASA and it doesn’t show the motion of the rotor blades. They rotate comparatively slowly in a cruise.

I also like to use spot metering to optimize the exposure for the helicopter rather than the bright sky. Canon’s Action Mode does not give you any choice.

This is not as sharp as I would like. Next time helicopters pass I’ll try 1/320 and see if I get a better result.

If cameras and accessories came with proper documentation Cheat Sheets wouldn’t be required. But I have never seen a good manufacturer’s camera manual – User Guide yet.

They are a boring list of feature descriptions without much consideration about how to use them to make pictures. I think the manufacturers are lazy – but maybe they want to leave space for third party publishers.

If I was in charge of a camera company I’d throw out all the manuals and write a task oriented guide showing off the features on the way. The functional descriptions could be in an appendix.

I think I know my way around my cameras well enough now that I do not need a cheat sheet. But I’d appreciate one for my Canon Speedlite 580EX I bought with the Canon EOS-30D in 2006. I only use it as a simple direct and bounce flash. It has loads of features I know nothing about. This company produces one.

Canon Speedlite 580EX Cheat Sheet

If it’s well done it may be worth the money, but I am suspicious of paying US$7.95 + tax and shipping for a single laminated card.

That’s Canon’s global tag line for all their businesses. They use “My Image, My Canon” for their amateur photography business.

I think it is dangerous to have a tag line like “Delighting You Always”. It seems to make a claim that cannot be kept – and then the user’s disappointment is magnified by the contrast with the marketing.

For example,

I purchased my Canon EOS-30D camera from Amazon.com, an authorized Canon dealer, before I left the USA in 2006. About three months after I arrived in Bangkok the shutter failed.

It was still under warranty so I took it to Canon (Thailand) on Sathorn Road. But they denied warranty service as the warranty only applied in the USA. I had to pay for a new shutter.

I definitely was NOT delighted! It seemed most unreasonable that Canon, a worldwide company, should limit its warranties thus. They know that photographers travel. They sell the same camera worldwide. Why not offer a worldwide warranty? It’s just an accounting problem to make sure the money gets channeled correctly.

I think the same is true of all the major vendors. They present the image of a single company to the world, but when you dig a little deeper Canon (Thailand) says “oh no, that’s not OUR problem, it’s a Canon (USA) problem”.

As far as I am concerned I deal with Canon and could care less about the parentheses. I am sure many users encounter the same issue and are not delighted.

“Delighting you Always” indeed. Piffle!

Un piccolo scorcio nel borgo di un paesello non ancora contagiato dal moderno…la bottega di un falegname intagliatore…

1/50 sec. @ f/2.8 – ISO 200

Alla Prossima!!!

Solo qualche veloce  scatto…

- – -

- – -

Alla Prossima!!!

I came across this completely by chance – Japanese style cosplay outside Siam Paragon. It was great for photography as all the players loved having their pictures taken. But it was so crowded that it was hard to get a good picture or anything remotely original.

I’m glad I had my Canon EOS-30D with a wide-angle lens with me – as usual the Nikon Coolpix P6000 would have been too slow.

I may return on Sunday and hope they are still there.

Igen, tudjuk. Mi is szeretjük az összehasonlításokat, szóval nézegessétek csak őket – nagyítót elő.